


So Scared Unwise

by voleuse



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-31
Updated: 2004-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard for him to admit need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Scared Unwise

**Author's Note:**

> Set after _Order of the Phoenix_. Title and headings taken from Alice Walker's _Expect Nothing_.

_i. expect nothing_

He goes to work each day, and doesn't speak to his father if they pass each other in the hallways.

He receives precisely three owls a day, all bearing messages related to work.

Once a week, he receives a note from his mother, telling him that all his family members are still alive. If there's an injury, from the war, or anything else, she makes mention of it, but little else.

He writes back to her each time, briefly, and confirms that he lives, safely, as well. He sends the note by owl, and doesn't hazard a conversation with his father.

_ii. become a stranger_

He and Penny get a flat near the Ministry. Before the moment they stepped in, together, he had never truly felt like an adult.

Her family is less than happy with the match, mostly because he's still young and unproven, as is she. Their salaries are meager, but their pride is large.

Her parents, at least, have broken bread with them, over their plain table. For that brief time, he can pretend that he's part of a whole family again. When they've left, however, Penny takes him in her arms, as if she expects him to cry.

He doesn't, but that's because she's there to comfort him. Without her, he would only have his pride, and his solitude.

_iii. take only enough_

He makes sufficient salary to eat well, as does Penny, but neither of them make enough to eat well together, in addition to paying for the flat.

They live simply, and happily, but she knows that he misses his mother's cooking. She misses her mother's cooking too, after all.

After their simple meals, they ease themselves snugly onto a threadbare sofa and talk about nothing at all. He knows her longings, and she knows his, and they know each other well enough not to dwell.

Sometimes the twining of their hands is enough to make everything seem insignificant, for a moment.

_iv. short of urge_

They make love every night, and sometimes during lunch breaks. Sometimes before breakfast, truth be told.

They are young, after all, and healthy, and almost everything to each other.

He loves the way she giggles as he runs his hands down her sensitive skin, and the way her hair tickles at his nose.

He loves the way she arches her back, runs her foot across his calves as they thrust against each other.

He loves the way she kisses him, trailing her hand over his throat. The way she whispers his name, and tells him she loves him.

He loves her, and tells her in every way he knows how.

_v. wish for nothing_

After they make love, he strokes her hair, and asks her to marry him.

She denies him with a kiss, and asks him to wait.

He's not sure what they're waiting for, but for her, he'll endure eternity.

_vi. your own small heart_

Percy's days are not as restful as his nights.

Work, while fulfilling his ambition, feels hollow after he sees his father turn his back each morning and afternoon.

Weeks pass, and one afternoon, after writing his rote reply to his mother, he picks his pen up again, and scribbles hastily about proposing to Penny. He sends the scrap of parchment off before he can change his mind.

The next day, his father smiles at him. He's almost too startled to smile back.

_vii. greater than a star_

After that point, his mother's notes become letters. Not the epistles they once exchanged, when he was still a student at Hogwarts, but filled with warmth, just the same. About Bill's latest project, as much as she knows, anyway, or Ron's latest fool-headed exploit. Brief paragraphs on her worries about the twins, or Ginny's latest paramour. Queries about official news of Charlie, because she thinks he doesn't tell her everything in his letters.

The letters come twice a week to his office, and he brings them home to Penny.

They read them over dinner, and if she notices his hands shake, she doesn't say a word.

_viii. tame wild disappointment_

He sees Ron at Diagon Alley one afternoon. Ron shows nothing but contempt on his face, and when Percy offers a handshake, Ron laughs and walks away.

When he returns home, late, Penny takes one look at his face and then takes him in her arms. Later, when they lie entwined in bed, he's able to tell her what happened, and she speaks her heart when she lays a hand on his cheek.

_ix. discover the reason why_

He dares to send a note to Ginny, a short inquiry about her studies and a private joke about their mother's scoldings, and he's surprised when a scroll's worth of reply is returned. Percy takes off from work, sends an owl to Penny and asks her to meet him at home.

She arrives, flustered and nervous of disaster, but Percy hands her Ginny's scroll. She reads it with a smile, and when Percy cries into her shoulder, she runs her hands into his hair and cries with him.

_x. so scared unwise_

With Penny's help, Percy writes a letter, a _real_ letter to his family. Addressed not only to Molly, but to Arthur and Ginny. He writes postscripts to Bill and Charlie, Fred and George, and Ron, still wary of their responses.

The next weekend, Molly arrives at the doorstep with an overgrown fern and a sweater for Penny, and he dares to let a sliver of hope enter his heart.


End file.
